Valentine’s Day Globe Base Craft Project

We have all seen directions for making those great homemade snow globes for the different holidays out of left over jars. Sometimes the jars can leave a little bit to be desired. I made some Valentine’s Day themed snow globes out of spaghetti jars one year and was sorely disappointed at how unfinished the bottom of the jars looked. I came up with the clay craft project so that you can simply slip your homemade Valentine’s Day snow globe into the clay base. Each base should cost you less than $5 depending on what type of air-drying clay you buy.

To Make this Homemade Valentine’s Day Snow globe Clay Base You Will Need:

Tip: take inspiration from whatever Valentine’s Day themed items you place in your snowglobe. You can find great plastic hearts, cupids, and more in any craft store. If you use glitter in place of snow be sure to add some to outside as well.

Start by breaking off a piece of clay. Work it into a coil by rubbing it between your hands or even on the work surface, your coil will work best if it is about ¼” thick.

Now, use these coils to wrap around the base of your glass jar. My jar is upside down, lid side down, and inserted into the clay that way. You are making the inside of the clay base; so don’t worry too much about how it looks right now.

Built your clay coils up until it cover the bottom part of your jar. Basically as high as you want.

Now that you have established the inside of your clay mold you can add more coils to build up the outside of the base and make it look good.

Use water to help smooth the surface and shape it into your desired Valentine’s Day shape. You can use clay-working tools to carve Valentine’s Day designs into the snow globe base. Try carving hearts, swirls, and even words in the base. You can roll out some clay into a sheet that is about 1/8 inch thick. Use your knife to cut out “Be Mine.” Lay the words on the clay and press them in to secure them.

You could even use extra clay to add details. You can cut out hearts and roses and attach them to the surface of the base as well.

Another great embellishment would be to roll out a small flat piece of clay, about 1/8″ thick. Cut it out like a small plaque and carve the date of the year into it or even your family’s last name. Now, use some water to adhere it to the clay snow globe base. This is a great way to remember that Valentine’s Day year after year.

You could also roll out small balls of clay and flatten them into polka dots to embellish the Valentine’s Day snowglobe base.

You have a choice to make now. Do you want your snow globe to be removable from the clay base or not. If you do want to remove it in the future follow these directions: gently pull up your snow globe jar out of the clay. Pull straight up trying to move your clay as little as possible. Once the snow globes it out I like to carefully reinsert it to make sure it will slide in once the clay is dried. Let your clay base dry completely before moving onto the next step.

One reason to be able to remove your snow globe from the clay base is if you think it might leak and need water and glycerin added to it at a later date. You might not ever need this though, so you could simply leave it in the clay to dry. Either way is fine, just let your clay dry completely.

Once the clay is dry you can paint it with Valentine’s Day colored acrylic paints, water colors paints, or even primer.

Allow this paint to dry and then spray on some coats of clear acrylic spray paint.

You can cut out a piece of felt to glue to the bottom to finished the clay snow globe base. You could also add those plastic picture stoppers.